Once More
by ziipon
Summary: You can always find a way back to Aperture Science, whether you want to or not. Reveiws are appreciated/begged for. Aside from a few headcrabs this story doesn't really connect at all to black mesa or half life.
1. Chapter 1

Wheezing, Gasping, Coughing, a slight pain with each breath, Chell's labored breathing could be heard all the way down the halls of the hospital. It didn't take long for her health to deteriorate. After only a few months after settling into a small town symptoms began to appear.

The toxic environment of Aperture science was beginning to take its toll. After hearing Cave Johnson's deranged rants, Chell was careful to avoid making contact with the conversion gel, but when Wheatley had her trapped on a panel with a dozen crusher plates surrounding her, she was left with few options. She popped a few portals to splatter the dripping conversion gel all over the panel, getting soaked with the goo in the process. However she managed to escape with her life, so overall it was a good decision, although at the moment it did not feel like to best decision; now she is being shaken awake by her own violent coughing. Her lungs ached, her head throbbed, and she desperately wanted to go back to being unconscious, but the pain wouldn't end any time soon. She still would be in treatment for a long time before she would be in any condition to leave. Soon the doctors would come to pick her up for treatment session, something similar to dialysis plus a few medication injections and some breathing exercises, not a pleasant experience but without it she would probably be dead already. It is amazing how just a few years could affect medicine, if Cave Johnson's incident happened a little later, he might have lived instead just taking pain pills until he just passed away. While Chell did not know just how many years – decades, maybe…centuries? – she was in stasis, but it was enough to give her a chance to survive toxic gel poisoning. She knew she was going to survive, if she could survive being put through tests with acid floors, bullet filled turrets, and deadly lasers by an insane AI (on three different occasions no less) she could tough out a few uncomfortable treatments.

Coughing and intense pain where the first symptoms, they didn't seem to be getting worse but new symptoms began to emerge; rage and mental instability where apparently not just affects Cave Johnson's normal personality lashing out in an dismal situation. Chell who was normally calm, quiet, and whose current situation was much less futile, was finding her cursing aperture, wanting to destroy it, to bring it crashing down for the second time. She remembered the last words GLaDOS spoke to her, and how she gave a slight chuckle as the elevator slid up the tube taking GLaDOS out of view. She seemed quite pleased even though previously she would have done everything in her power to end Chell's life right then and there. She could have use crusher panels, turrets, neurotoxin, acid floors, and bombs, she could have killed Chell and it would have been so easy for her too, Chell nearly had a heart attack when she saw the turrets were waiting for her, no escape and she still let Chell go, like she knew that the toxic gel would start tearing away at her health, giving her a taste of freedom before quickly dying of sickness. It was like GLaDOS had it all planned and it infuriated her. Sometimes she would succumb to violent outbursts and start screaming, which was the only reason the doctors didn't think she was mute. She swore that next piece of Aperture Science equipment she would smash into a wall, a seemingly pointless thought seeing as she was miles from the facility with no intent of returning, yet it was almost immediately fulfilled as an acquaintance of hers walked into her room holding a large metal block. As soon as it was handed to her she threw companion cube against the wall, leaving a sizable dent in the plaster.

"Hey, I thought you liked that thing." said Jonathan, the man who narrowly missed death-by-cube. He was neighbor from Chell's apartment, tall lean with short brown hair. He had only brought the companion cube to cheer her up.

Although she kept the cube she was not particularly attached to it. When GLaDOS had her dump it into the incinerator she mentioned how she gave it up much quicker than any other test subject. It was a cube. Just a cube. She was not entirely sure why other test subjects became so attached to it, although she did find it useful. While she did not expect to find any oversized buttons needing to be pushed, or high energy pellets to be deflected, she took it just in case, and it did prove to be quite useful too. While wandering around looking for civilization she was attacked by a four-legged crab thing that was adamant about attaching itself to her head, and she promptly used the cube to beat it to death after that she decided to keep it with her wherever she may go, for she would probably see many unforeseeable tasks ahead, and it is not like keeping it would hurt her.

"The Aperture Science weighted companion cube will never threaten to stab you, and in fact, cannot speak." GLaDOS stated many times in the chamber where she first received the cube. It would never hurt her; it wouldn't stab her, try to crush her with "mashy-spike-plates", trap her in a room with (defective) turrets, fill the room with neurotoxin, place a "spinny-blade-wall" in front of her, throw bombs at her, or set up a booby trap in the stalemate resolution annex. It could not do any of those things. It was a cube. Just a cube. Chell hoisted the cube off the floor and on to her hospital bed thinking maybe that was a reason to get attached; In Aperture Science there where not a lot of things that were not trying to end the test subject's life. She rested her head on the cube, listening to the faint music playing inside, hoping to calm down and regain her sanity, and drifted off.

Recovery can be a very slow process, making the moment when the doctors say that you are healthy enough to go home feel like a long awaited gift. Although she never really had time to settle down in her apartment, she was glad to be back. There was very little furnishing, she had not been working long enough to afford much furniture, and her hospital bill was definitely going to postpone a trip to get more. She walked into her bedroom and flopped down on the bed, (the only piece of furniture in the room besides using companion cube as a bedside table.) the room had a single window covered with blinds. The walls where a faded shade of grey, the worn carpet was of a similar color. The room was completely empty accept for the bed. It reminded her too much of Aperture; the testing room's wide white paneled walls, sometimes having nothing but a button and a cube inside. She needed some color – anything besides white, orange, or blue. Especially not blue, she would rather not be reminded of the doctors barely being able to save her when the effects of the repulsion gel began sucking the calcium from her bones.

"We haven't quite pinpointed what element it is yet, but whatever it is, it does not like the human skeleton." The words of caution Cave Johnson's pre-recorded messages gave as Chell navigated the sealed-off test spheres of Aperture Science, but she didn't care anymore. She was out of Aperture, out of the hospital, and nothing was going to bring her down now.

She got up to open the blinds, and light spilled into the room, bathing the walls with the pale red glow of the setting sun. On the horizon she could see a few figures backlit by the intense glow of the disappearing sun's rays. She walked down to the edge of the wheat field to see that the figures were Jonathan and a telescope.

"Hi there." Jonathan said, noting her walking up to him, "Your out of the hospital, are you feeling better? Or did you run away after crushing your doctor with the cube?" he asked jokingly, and, as expected, received no response. "D'you want to join me? I am going to examine the lunar eclipse." He said while adjusting his telescope. Chell looked up into the sky, it was getting darker, and the moon was starting to come into sight. Although she thought he could get a pretty good view of the lunar eclipse without a telescope, she helped him adjust the lens. Through the glass she could see the surface of the moon very clearly, and remembered a recent experience that allowed her a much, much, closer look at the moon. She shuddered and jerked back quickly, knocking the telescope out of position. She then quickly began re-adjusting the telescope, having ruined the view before Jonathan could take a look. She looked through the lens and whipped around the telescope until she found the moon's surface. Or what she thought was the moon's surface, a white blurry circle was in view. She began to adjust the focus of the telescope, gradually the blurred lines of the image became more defined, now clearly not the moon. The edges of the image were now sharp and clear. Chell could see every detail of the slowly rotating core. The gyroscope frame visible from the holes on its side, the tiny Aperture Science logo printed on the side of its shell, the handle bars flexing back and forth. As it rotated its large green optic came into sight.

Chell stepped back, slightly surprised. She did not notice that Rick had been sucked into space as well. She definitely was not expecting to find him, when she saw the aperture logo she thought she had been looking at the corrupted core obsessed with space or an intelligence dampening sphere that had gone mad with power, but made little difference really. She was never going to see them again, without a telescope anyway.

To be perfectly honest Chell felt rather apathetic towards Wheatley's situation; maybe she would feel more sympathetic for his situation if it were not for – well, obvious reasons, and Chell did not feel much in the ways of forgiveness towards Wheatley, she did not think she could blame the entire situation on the programming for the central core, although he had never tried to kill her, Wheatley didn't seem too fond of humans even before he was loaded into GLaDOS'es chassis, and yet she could not say that she wanted him to suffer; Chell was not one for vengeance she just wanted to survive, but all together it just one more event she would rather forget.

**Author's notes**

**Hi, this is my first fanfiction, and I am not a very experienced writer, so I would like reviews very much.**


	2. Chapter 2

Ten thousand smelly hu- test subjects, ten thousand test subjects. He did not really know why he was put in charge of them; the relaxation center was automatically waking them up and keeping them on life support, Wheatley's job was relatively pointless. He never worried much about his job, but as the years passed the reserve power ran low, most of the other cores started breaking down and then one day he heard the warning signal, the reactor core was starting to melt down. He needed to get out of there, he needed help. The facility was going to blow up, and everyone was going to die, the cores, the nanobots, the test subjects…The test subjects! He could use their help! He headed over to the relaxation center with hope building inside him, only to be greeted with disappointment when he found out of the thousands of test subjects, only a handful survived. Just a few from the 9,999 test subjects, one escaped after causing GLaDOS to crash. It was a shame really, he probably was the best candidate for helping Wheatley escape, and now he only had a few to choose from, and, well, it did not turn out good. He felt despair creep inside him, he wouldn't be able to escape on his own, he was just a core. The management rails where far too damaged for him to properly navigate the facility. Wheatley just about given up when he noticed there was one human left. No name or number listed, it was the human the party escort brought in shortly after the system crashed. His last chance. He rushed to over to her room, and when she finally opened the door he let out a small yelp in surprise.

"You look terrib-uh, good! Rather good actually." He said, saving himself from insulting the person he was most dependant on at the moment, and slid into the room. Her appearance was…unexpected. Clearly from her jumpsuit and long fall boots she was an Aperture Science test subject, but she was not as clean and healthy looking as the other test subjects where. She was pale, but that was expected, most test subjects have not been near the sun in a while. Her clothes where tattered and smudged with dirt, she had a few scars, and her was hair matted. She looked like she had walked through an explosion or a hurricane or something; she was clearly in much worse condition than the others, but no matter, there were more important things at hand.

The memories reeled around in his mind over and over again. There were few things that could distract him from the extreme boredom of being stranded in space, other than the corrupt core, but vast majority of the time it acted more like a painful reminder rather than a distraction. Since having been stranded the core had also become bored with space and was now constantly stating that he wanted to go home. Wheatley really wished he could just drift away from the space core, but it somehow got stuck in orbit around Wheatley, something he found very strange seeing as they were the same size. Well it was broken; maybe it was missing something inside the computer and had a lower mass.

Wheatley just continued to float there, continually flicking his flash light on and off, hoping that eventually it would kill him, just like the scientists said it would. After all, what could he do besides slowly deteriorate in the vacuum of space? Years of boredom, incredible regret, and maybe physical pain whenever a meteorite flew by, there was little good to gain from staying alive, but no matter how many times he flashed his light he was still alive, and staring at the blue and green globe he used to call home.

He remembered the first time he used his flash light, GLaDOS had turned off all the lights leaving him and the worlds most destructive test subject in a black void, not unlike his current situation. He genuinely thought turning on his flashlight could kill him, but if they could not navigate the rails they would be stuck until GLaDOS found them, so either way they would be dead and at least if he did it himself he knew he would not be tortured first. He flicked it on, and let a scream of fear slip out, then opened his eye to see the illuminated face of the slightly startled test subject and became irritated. He had lived, and for that he was greatly relieved, but annoyed by once again finding out he had been lied to by the scientists, and thought of how useful the un-lethal flashlight would have been all those years navigating the decrepit walls of Aperture.

Seeing as the scientists did not actually give him something that would kill him if he used it, he figured the next best option would be to go into sleep mode. He closed his optic and went into standby, grateful to no longer hear the space core's chatter.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Chell woke up coughing and grabbed a bottle pills off of companion cube. Healthy enough to go home, but not fully recovered, she was weak and still wheezing. Even so she had to go to work; the rent was not going to pay itself, and had already been away for two months. After getting dressed she walked out the door to see Jonathan wearily walking back to his apartment completely exhausted, having spent the entire night outside with his telescope trying to figure out just what exactly Rick was.

"You're not gonna believe it," He said as he unlocked his door, "I saw two more of those satellite things last night." This was by no means news to Chell; after all she was there when they got sucked into space, nearly ending up there herself. She turned to leave for work as it was clear Jonathan was too tired to continue talking as he stumbled into his own apartment.

As soon as she walked into the book store her co-worker, Gordon, handed her a box of books. Gordon also lived in the same building as Chell and Jonathan. He had short brown hair a bit of a beard, black glasses, green eyes, and persisted to carry a crowbar on his belt at all times. If it were not for their nametags on their uniforms she probably would not even know his name for he spoke about as much as she did, He pointed to some shelves that needed stocking and then left for the back room. She quietly began organizing the books on the shelves, not many costumers were in that day so it was very quiet as she organized the shelves. The quiet peaceful bookstore almost seemed unreal, even though she had been out for months she sometimes still could not believe she had escaped after being trapped in Aperture for years, although conscious for only a few hours, but so many things can happen in a moment. So many things can go wrong, it may have just been a few hours but the events would most definitely scar her for years to come. She remembered her first day free, after the shock of actually being let go wore off she hoisted up the companion cube, with slight difficulty as it seemed much heavier than when she had the tractor beam of the portal device, but as soon as she got a good grip and steady balance she ran. She ran as fast as she could, no matter how far she ran it was not far enough. She could trust GLaDOS about as far as she could throw her, (as a potato that was quite far, but know she had regained power the thought alone was nearly inconceivable.) Chell was half expecting a robotic arm to reach out of the shed and pull her back in as if letting her see the sun was just a way of torturing her by showing a life she could never have, or that if she ran far enough she would hit a wall and find out that the blue sky was just a projection and she was still inside Aperture, but eventually she had to stop running due to pure exhaustion, she had become so used to the adrenal vapor in the air she was easily fatigued without it. The feeling that GLaDOS was just toying with her and that she might wake up in an Aperture Science relaxation center any minute did not fully disappear until she ran into other humans in a town a few miles from where she collapsed from exhaustion. At first it was difficult to get assimilated into the new environment, being a random stranger popping into town who will not say where she is from, if she has any relatives, past experiences, or give any indication of a personal history what-so-ever. However she eventually managed to get a home a job and a new life.

When she finished stacking books on the shelf she proceeded to the check-out station, noting Jonathan looking at books on space and satellites. Over the next few days she noticed him out in the field spending long hours looking up at the sky with his telescope ever fascinated by the cores floating around the moon. Chell did not go down to see him, how someone could stay so fascinated with space junk for so long she did not know. If she had to guess, curiosity, no way of knowing what they are, he can only observe hoping to gain more knowledge. Chell already knew quite well what they were and how they got there, but she would never tell him.


	4. Chapter 4

Wheatley was knocked out of sleep mode by light impact; he opened his eye to see he collided with into the moon. He found himself half buried in reflective dusty surface he came to loath as he orbited it the past few months. He looked around to see Space core wriggling around, buried very deep in the dust he was only able to see his yellow optic sticking out of the dust pile he kicked up. He looked over and saw the planet he used to call home. Once again memories started reeling, what he remembered the most was the last few moments when somehow she had managed to survive the bomb trap he set up for her. She was so stubborn; you could not make her give up no matter how abysmal the chances were of falling in her favor. He remembered the last he saw her, she looked determined as always, despite the fact that she was clinging to dear life by his handles, the main cord holding him in could snap at any second and she still was not scared. Then GLaDOS grabbed on to her and started pulling her in while detaching Wheatley from her chassis. Then he was sent flying, the last thing he saw was the portal closing as soon as the test subject was dragged in, the swirling blue glow disappearing in a blink, leaving him in the abyss.

Wheatley looked back up to the Earth and sighed. A twinkling light came from earth but paid no attention to it. A few hundred yards away a swirling portal had just opened up and a robotic claw snaked across the rough, dusty surface of the moon. The claw bumped against a round metal object and immediately snapped at it dragging it back through the portal. GLaDOS observed the vacuum sealed chamber she made specifically for trapping the moron whom tortured her. With the test subjects she found all having died already, she had few things to take pleasure in, and decided to get a practice target for her precious killers. It would take little effort to get him back, so it was more than worth the torture he was going to endure, and he deserved it after all that he had done to her and her facility. Having no cameras in space she did not realize the core she brought in was not the intelligence dampening sphere until it was brought into the chamber. The adventure sphere was quickly tossed aside and the claw went through the portal again, stretching to the farthest lengths the cord would allow and snaked around until she heard a surprised yelp in her wireless AI communication system; Wheatley's surprised reaction to see the claw rise from the dust and snatch away the space core. Only a few minutes later he saw it return for it aimlessly meander around until it bumped into his shell. Immediately it latched on to his handle and rapidly retracted. He shrieked in fear as the claw rapidly dragged him through the dust and down the portal. The second he hit the portal was disengaged and intense rush of air swept over him as the vacuum in the chamber was broken.

"Hello moron." The cold monotone voice filled the chamber as a robotic claw swept the other cores aside and picked him up. "I was just thinking back about how you put me into a potato. It was a valuable learning experience for me." She said each word saturated with malice, "I never got to repay you for that gift."

"No, no, no, no," He pleaded, but it was futile. Even when unprovoked GLaDOS would destroy and kill without as much as a second thought. With what he had done, not even a madman would be foolish enough to expect mercy


	5. Chapter 5

Chell came home from work and changed out of her work clothes into a plain t-shirt and jeans then turns to collapse on her bed. She rolled over and clutched companion cube, closed her eyes and sighed; it was lonely, Chell did not have a lot of a friends, in fact when she really thought about it she could not count any at all. Sure there was Jonathan who was amiable enough but she did not consider him a friend, she never really got to know him. She never talked to anyone so she never got to know anyone. It was lonely and quiet, but at least it was peaceful.

She lay still, enjoying the silent breeze coming through the window. Chell always took time to enjoy the quiet moments of peace, an event she rarely came across in Aperture. The silence was only broken by a soft squeaking noise. Chell sat up as soon as she noticed, this was strange. She looked around and found the sound was coming from under the bed. She lifted the covers and peered into the shadows to be greeted by a sharp shriek. Leaping out from under the bed was another one of those four-legged crab things. She kicked it off immediately and grabbed companion cube. With another loud shriek it leapt forth only to be pinned to the ground by the cube. It squealed as Chell put her full weight on top of the cube, then lifted the cube back up then struck the crab until it stopped moving. Chell looked around for some type of cloth and grabbed a rag lying on the ground and wrapped it around her hand to pick up the crab thing which was now oozing strange fluids. She her apartment left to dispose of the carcass to be greeted by many other attendants who were coming to see what the shrieking noise was. The attendants were made very uncomfortable by the sight of the creature. Gordon came over and held out his hand to collect the crab and Chell was gracious to let go of it. She dropped it into his hand and tucked the rag into her back pocket as Gordon examined it. He looked back at her with a very serious look in his eyes.

Chell was then been informed that the creature that attacked her was a headcrab which probably crawled in through her open window. She learned that they were dangerous parasites that could take control of a human body, but worst of all they traveled in groups so there were probably more to come. Chell threw on her sneakers and went out to join a group of people searching for the headcrabs lead by Gordon, while carrying companion cube. No music box could kill crabs better than companion cube she thought. After searching every dark corner and hidden pathways they combed the field for the crabs. They spent hours looking through the golden wheat as the sun beat down on them. Chell wondered if there really were any other crabs to be found, surely they would have found some by now, they had already traveled a few miles from the town. Chell was just about to turn around and head home when she tripped over an abnormal bump in the dirt and sent companion cube flying. The dreaded shriek of the headcrab rang over head, Chell looked up in to see the crab flying through the air. She kicked away just as it was about to land and she scrambled her way to the companion cube. Hoisting companion cube into the air she brought it down heavily upon the next one that appeared by her, only to see three more had come. Soon she realized dozens of the crabs where swarming around the wheat, every one was kicking them off and beating them down. Gordon was taking care of a fair amount with just his trusty crowbar. An unusually large number of them gathered around Chell and she started crushing them immediately, but by the time she killed one three more where at her heels. She needed to buy time so she immediately spun around and ran, but they followed.

Chell thought she would be able to outrun the headcrabs, they seemed slow enough, but after only a few minutes of running she began coughing and wheezing and slowing down. Still weak, still recovering, not to mention still carrying companion cube. She could not continue forward with the weight, but if she gave up companion cube she would not have a weapon to defend herself. When she felt the crab scratching at her heels she knew she would not be able to make it with the companion cube's weight and turned around and threw it at the crab, only to see that many more were still following. She pushed forward with short bursts of speed, finally gaining some distance without companion cube, losing most of the headcrabs, but somewhere still following her. At least now the headcrabs were in a small enough group for her to take them on herself, but not with her bare hands, she needed something to work with. As she ran she looked around for something to use as a weapon, rocks, branches, anything, but all she saw was endless wheat.


	6. Chapter 6

"AAAH! AAAH! AAAAAHHH!" Wheatley screamed as a birds pecked at his wires, they were only hatchlings, but it still really hurt. Over his own screams he could hear a soft, smug chuckle emanating from GLaDOS's vocal processor.

"That's very good; make sure to get to the internal wiring." She instructed the birds, "Oh this is much better than what I originally had planned." Wheatley could not stop screaming in pain long enough to respond. The tiny birds buried their heads between his plates and started pecking at his vocal processor.

"!" He screamed in an abnormally shrill voice. After a moment the chicks stopped pecking and began chirping quietly.

"Oh, do you need some rest?" GLaDOS asked sounding unusually motherly, which only made Wheatley more terrified. "You go to sleep, Mommy will take care of the moron." She said while using a claw to lift Wheatley out of the aviary. Finally out of the horrid bird cage Wheatley let out a sigh of relief, proving to be a big mistake when GLaDOS swung around to face him. "Don't think I'm done with you." She said, her tone once again the cold monotone voice it was before, "I have a lot planned for you, you will pay for every moment of torment you caused me."

"W-What _eee-_ are you-u going to do?" His voice faltering as his vocal processor tried to recover from the bird attack.

"Oh, you'll see," She chuckled while pulling his dusty shell across the room and dropping it into a chute.

Wheatley yelped and groaned as he bumped around the shaft. Tumbling down he eventually hit the ground with a loud metallic clang. He rolled his optic around trying to see what fresh new android hell she had left him in. The room was dark, and he could barely see the figures of other robots even with his flashlight, but he knew where he was immediately when the room filled with loud shrieks.

"Blue, Orange I have a job for you." GLaDOS called out after dropping Wheatley in the room where all the robots scream at you. The two robots walked in chirping inquisitively. "No, we will not be testing today." She sighed, their love for testing was one of the best qualities she gave them, but they were terrible test subjects. You are not really proving anything when you already know the test subjects are going to pass the test. They completed every test, maybe getting crushed a few times, but it was not really science. Since all the hidden test subjects she found died she kept herself preoccupied by torturing Wheatley and taking care of her birds, but she still felt something was missing.

The two robots set off to GLaDOS's bidding while Wheatley was left with screams echoing through his input speakers. If he could connect to the management rail, he would ride out immediately, but he was left on the ground as a core with no arms, legs, or any decent form of transportation. The constant stimulation from the piercing robot screams was preventing him from going into sleep mode. He looked around with his flashlight for a chance to get out, and found that a small panel was missing from the wall, now he the limbless core only needed to figure out how to get to it. He tried multiple things, most were attempts to trick the screaming robots into shoving him through the wall. He tried several impressions of GLaDOS and tried ordering them to do it but they would not stop screaming. At last he tried rapidly flexing his handles, stretching them until they slightly pushed against the floor, eventually he manage to push hard enough to slowly start rolling towards the wall, only to get caught teetering on the edge of freedom. He was so close, he just needed to inch forward a little before GLaDOS came back to resume his bird pecking session.


	7. Chapter 7

Chell's Blood ran cold and stopped in her tracks when she realized that she had wandered towards an all too familiar electrical shed. She had no intention of going back to Aperture, but immediately leapt forward when she felt a head crab land on her shoulders. She pried the thing off and ran for the shed, after swinging the heavy metal door open she stepped inside to see the elevator still there from when she left. She stepped inside and turned to face the field leaving the door open. She stood there silently and watched the headcrabs come, not closing the door until one jumped through the air at which point she suddenly slammed it shut getting the creature caught between the door and the frame. She opened it again and while the headcrab tried to move slammed the door repeatedly on its body. After slamming the door about ten times the headcrab could only pathetically twitch its front legs before it stopped moving all together. Chell opened the door only to kick the corpse out before slamming it shut again. She could hear the soft squeaks and scratching of more crabs around the shed. She stood in the elevator surrounded by a darkness that was only broken by a faint streak of light coming from underneath the door, partially blocked by the crabs' shadows. She sat down inside the elevator and started wheezing and coughing from the exertion, after she was able to catch her breath a few minutes later, she waited for the squeaks to subside and it would be safe for her to leave, which proved to be a quite a while.

Chell had just woken up having dozed off in the darkness of the shed. It was uncomfortably hot for the sun had been beating down on it the entire time. She realized she had still had her rag sticking out of her back pocket and used it to wipe the sweat off her forehead. As she stuck it back into her pocket she listened intently for the headcrabs and heard nothing. Looking at the light coming from underneath the door she saw no shadows, and the light was now a warm red. Chell had been waiting for quite a while and the sun was beginning to set. Now that she was certain that she could leave the shed safely she opened the door to find the others she had grouped up with and maybe the companion cube if she could remember where she dropped it while panicking. She looked out of the shed and saw the field lit up red by the setting sun, with streaks of color set across the sky a cool breeze swept over her skin and into the hot shed. Eager to get out of the entrance to her worst nightmare she stepped out only to be instantaneously greeted by the shriek of a headcrab that had buried itself while waiting for prey to come along. Chell quickly jumped back into the elevator attempting to perform the death-by-doorframe trick again, but when she slammed the door shut the crabs entire body was inside with her. Trying to prevent the headcrab from climbing up her legs Chell kicked as hard as she could against the side of the elevator, cracking the glass quite a bit. When she noticed this she repeated the method until a shards of glass fell from the sides of the elevator, she quickly grabbed one of the shards and plunged it into the headcrab cutting her hand in the process. The creature shrieked and stopped briefly allowing Chell to pin it to the ground. It struggled against her weight, but she would not let it go. She then put her full weight on it and started jumping up and down on the creature pounding it into the elevator's floor. Chell did not so much as hesitate beating the already dead crab until she heard a loud crack from the already damaged elevator. She stood perfectly still atop the dead the crab afraid to take a breath. The shed seemed to groan as the metal of the elevator warped and bended. Chell quickly reach for the door handle only to slip past it as the elevator's bottom half fell down the metal shaft.

The warm air rushed passed Chells face as she slipped down the tube with the headcrab corpse. The sensation reminded her of when Wheatley went mad with power, almost instantly after being plugged into GLaDOS's body. Not really something she wanted to remember. She really liked the core up until that point, and what made it worse is that she could still see bits of the silly old personality while he tested her and set up death traps. Instead of letting painful old memories flood her mind she tried to think about how different her current situation was, but that only made her feel worse; she had realized that now she did not have a desperate potato that would set her free, now she did not have an AI that would keep her alive to test, and worst of all now she did not have her long fall boots.

Chell wished she had worn her long fall boots, better yet she wish the implants in her legs never broke, then she would never have to worry about losing them, but for now she had to think of a way to slow herself down. She kicked against the shaft forcing herself against the wall. Pushing against her legs and her back against both sides of the tube allowed her enough friction to slow her enough to grab on to the supporting frame, as well as tearing off the sleeve of her T-shirt and causing her shoulder to bleed. She clung to the pole and inhaled sharply as blood trickled down her back, her tattered T-shirt was now falling off her shoulder. Chell was injured and the pain was intense, but alive, just a normal day in Aperture Science. She reached into her back pocket while keeping a good foothold and with one hand still on the frame. She took out her rag and pressed the cloth against her shoulder. Now that she was calm she needed to find her way down. She did not have the strength to climb all the way back up. It would be easier to climb down and find another way back to the surface. First she would need to find out how far she had to climb down, if she recalled correctly this elevator shaft lead directly to…

GLaDOS's chamber.


	8. Chapter 8

Chell slowly lowered herself down the chute looking for a place to exit. She had to find a place to get off before she reached GLaDOS's chamber. Sure she had let Chell go, but that was because GLaDOS never wanted to see her face again, and because she was too difficult to kill. If GLaDOS ever did see her, Chell certainly would not get off as easy as she did last time. She had to find a place to hide, she already passed a few rooms, but they all contained turrets that would fire as soon as she entered the room. Finally she came upon a room, there were turrets inside, but they were the defective turrets left over from Chell's sabotage. Chell gratefully stepped in front of the blind turrets and snuck out the door, where she immediately sat down to nurse her bleeding shoulder and palm.

Chell looked around, trying to remain quiet and stifle her own coughing. She was in no condition to be running for her life around this hell hole again. She needed to find someplace quite to rest, someplace unmonitored. If she was lucky she could get out without GLaDOS ever noticing she was there. Maybe she could get to the relaxation center and rest in one of the abandoned rooms. The place should be unmonitored, no test subjects means the relaxation center would be empty, unmonitored, and most importantly shut off so Chell would not have to worry about being put into long term stasis. The trouble was finding it. Chell knew that the relaxation center was near testing areas, but she could not enter testing areas for the risk of being caught by the cameras inside, not to mention all of the tests required a valuable piece of equipment she did not have. She walked down the hall leading away from the defective turret's room and found she was in one of the many abandoned offices buildings of aperture science. She turned into one to find the same old desks and computers that where left on despite no one being here to use them. She shuffled through the drawers hoping to find a blue print or a map of the place. She found an old piece of paper with a photocopy of a rough sketch scrawled on it. It showed the offices and a path leading to the break room, next to it was a giant square marked "Testing Area AVOID" although this piece of paper was probably very useful when new, unsuspecting people came to work here it was of little use to Chell. It did not show a way to the surface, or the relaxation center, or even a way to get to the other side of the testing center without going through it. All she knew was that she was near the testing track. Chell leaned back in one of the chairs left in the office and began to gather her thoughts when she noticed a management rail. There were no cores around, but that did not matter, all she needed to do was follow the rail, it was bound to lead somewhere, hopefully the relaxation center she thought.

Chell followed the unoccupied rail down the hall, past all the offices until she found it split two different directions, going right would lead directly into the test chambers so she went left and found herself in a room filled with cabinets. Chell opened the cabinets to find they were filled with ever recognizable orange jumpsuits. At the sight of this she started shuffling through all the other cabinets and drawers finding more jumpsuits and undershirts and pants clad with the aperture logo. She continued searching through the uniforms, after what happened in the elevator shaft she did not want to go anywhere without some long fall boots. She came across one drawer that was locked shut. Of course, jumpsuits and underclothes where cheap and easy to replace, but long fall boots were an expensive piece of aperture technology that needed to be protected, so if they were in here they would be locked away. However this did not stop Chell, she attempted to pry the lock open with a metal pole from a broken desk leg, although she ended up tearing off the front of the drawer instead, but as long as she could get inside she considered it a success. The drawer was full of long fall boots and as soon as Chell found a pair her size she kicked off her shoes and strapped them on.

The test supply room was right next to the relaxation center; she walked into the first rooms she could find. It was one of the older designs, a glass chamber that could be dragged and dropped into a test room. It had the pod-like bed and a toilet just like the one she woke up in her first round of testing. Personally Chell preferred the rooms designed to look like a hotel, but it was not worth searching for and Chell settled herself in the bed and tried to fall asleep despite the unfriendly surroundings.


	9. Chapter 9

Wheatley rapidly flailed his handle bars trying to teeter himself forward, eventually he succeeded and toppled over the edge, and bounced down into the darkness. He bumped against many objects along the way, responding to each impact with a grunt or a yelp. It was uncomfortable, but better than the birds pecking at his wiring. After about twenty minutes of falling, Wheatley eventually he found himself landing on a poorly maintained catwalk. He looked directly up to see a conveyer belt rolling into the incinerator. He looks back down directly in front still trying to figure out where he is, and sees an emancipation grill covering a doorway. The place seems vaguely familiar, but Wheatley was having trouble remembering, until his escape attempt with the test subjects he never left the management rail and was not used to looking at things from this view. It was not until he heard a sweet voice that it he knew where he was.

"Hello," Wheatley flipped around to see someone had left a turret on the end of the catwalk, "I'm different." The turret said, but Wheatley ignored it, and tried to think of a way out of there. The turret redemption line was not too far from a management rail, but in his current state an even few inches were a hassle to travel. He had rolled onto his side and neither one of his handles could make contact with the floor. It was times like these Wheatley wished he had legs, or at least someone to carry him. Unless someone came by and picked him up he would be stuck there for a very long time.

Wheatley sat exasperated; being stuck in some dark catwalk was not much of an improvement over floating around in space, at least now his companion was not a corrupt core incessantly chattering about space. The turret at the end of the catwalk would occasionally say something cryptic or reference Greek mythology, but most of the time it was quiet. He had been sitting in complete silence for a good twenty minutes before the turret at the end of the catwalk pipes up again.

"She won't do it." It squeaked quietly, and paused for a brief moment before continuing, "After suffering many trials Odysseus received aid from the goddess Athena."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Wheatley asked, but the turret gave no answer. Instead he heard a familiar high pitched squealing and chirping echoing throughout the redemption center. The nanobots had come, probably to inspect the course before quickly resuming other duties.

Wheatley had briefly worked with the nanobots before; they were all over the facility helping with the repairs when a few came across his crushed body lying just outside of GLaDOS's chamber. Having been ordered to repair whatever they found to be broken they took Wheatley to the maintenance room and rebooted him. When he regained consciousness and realized what happened he was unsure of what to do, he did not have a job anymore, all the test subjects where dead and he was unneeded. If he was not of any use GLaDOS would probably crush him again if she ever saw him. He could try escaping again now that the management rails where being repaired, but it was unlikely he would go undetected by the omnipotent AI and he was powerless against her. Wheatley was sneaking around the facility trying to stay out of sight when he noticed that the test chambers where activated. Out of curiosity he poked his head in between a few panels to see what the test rooms where being used for when he saw her; the test subject, the one that defeated GLaDOS, she was alive. Amazingly enough GLaDOS had not killed her, then again she was the very last test subject and GLaDOS was built to test. Wheatley quickly withdrew himself behind the panels before the lady came over; if he stayed in near test chambers too long GLaDOS might find him and he would probably die, and then there was the test subject in the chambers. GLaDOS was probably planning to kill her eventually, that is if she survived the turrets, acid, and lasers, inside the tests. They needed to escape.

After briefly speaking to the test subject and being attacked by a bird, most of the facility was repaired and the nanobots were working on rebuilding the elevator shafts. When Wheatley found out about this he tried convincing them to let him be a part of the crew. He could use it to communicate with the test subject; after all she would be the only one using the elevators.

All of that was but a distant memory, the task hand (so to speak) was getting the nanobots to aid him.


	10. Chapter 10

The Relaxation Center shook, Chell tried to get up but the glass on her pod would not open. The room she was in gradually began to lift from its position and move forward. It glided carefully forward, the trip much smoother than when Wheatley had been navigating her room. Chell could barely see what was going on, she tried peering over the metal edge of her pod and looked through the glass to see a wall of panels opening up for the room to enter. The room gently rests inside the chamber before the glass of the pod swings open and a portal appears on the wall. Going through the portal she sees a test chamber door. Chell enters the test chamber noting the lit up sign on the wall marking it the first of twenty tests, but it seems far too difficult for it to be the first test. Turrets guarded the exit door with only glass separating them. Suddenly a voice came over the intercom.

"Imagine my surprise when I found that someone was in the relaxation vault," the cold monotone voice had started, "I never thought you would return here. You must love testing even more than I do," She continued, "and I _really_ love to test. However, thanks to the co-operative testing initiative, I have all the test subjects I need, and I don't need you destroying this facility again." She said as she lifted away the glass in front of the turrets. Their little beams all gathered on Chell's chest as she backed into the door, but it had already shut behind her. "Goodbye." GLaDOS said cheerfully.

Chell's heart seemed to leap out of her chest as she sat up startled, hitting her head on the glass. She was still in the pod, and had been dreaming. The glass slid away for her to get out, which she did in a hurry. She wanted to get out of the relaxation center before her dream became a reality.

Chell walked down the hall cautiously looking around each corner, so far the offices where as abandoned and empty as always. She could not find an exit, there were no elevators, fire escapes or stairs. It was no wonder everyone in Aperture Science died, they had a severe lack of safety procedures even government mandated ones. If Aperture Acience ever needed to evacuate the facility, which they probably did when GLaDOS turned on the neurotoxin, they would be in a lot of trouble. Chell knew there had to be another exit somewhere, like the parking lot she passed out in when she killed GLaDOS, but that exit was also directly above GLaDOS's chamber. Come to think of it, when she first paired up with Wheatley they had to go through GLaDOS's chamber while looking for the escape pod breaker. Chell felt her chest tightened as she considered that all exits were connected to GLaDOS, and she would not be able to escape without going through her chamber. Chell sat down in one of the office chairs to think, She was needed to get to the surface, but there were no stairs, the only elevators were she knew the location of were in the test chambers, and those where being controlled by GLaDOS. Just then Chell noticed a slight breeze on her neck, she turned around to see an air vent was behind her. If a breeze was coming through than it could mean that it was connected near the surface, seeing as it was unlikely GLaDOS would run air conditioning for some humans that died long ago.

Chell slowly used her fingers to twist off the screws that held on the vent cover and let it fall to the ground with a clatter. She crawled inside the vent on her hands and knees. Inside the vent she moved slowly and quietly, now that she was inside every sound would echo. She climbed through the dusty metal walls peeking through each opening to see if she was any closer to an exit. Soon she found the shaft had split into two directions, one continuing in front of her and the other going directly above her. She was able to stand in the shaft that went up and placed her palms firmly against the walls, pressing her tender shoulders against the side; she pressed her legs against the sides as well and began climbing. The upward climb drained her energy quickly, as soon as she found a horizontal passage she threw herself into it and tried to stifle her coughing and wheezing. The dust gathering in the vents agitated her lungs; she looked forward to finding the surface and getting some fresh air. The thought reminded her that she needed to get back home to take her medication. She wondered how long she had been gone, considering how she left she wondered if everyone assumed she was dead, especially if they found the companion cube abandoned in the field.

Chell regained her focus and continued down the air duct. Far in front of her she saw a glowing light coming from an opening in the vent and headed towards it. As she crawled forward she noticed she was in a more damaged part of the air duct, it bended under her weight, it would creek as she move forward, the walls had cracks and patches of duct tape were everywhere, but there was not enough room to turn around. She flattened herself against the shaft and began moving very slowly trying not to shake the unstable structure too much. She passed the opening where the glowing light was coming from but could not find the source.

It became harder to breath in the vent, and progressively got warmer. Soon Chell was dripping with sweat, and she stopped to wipe her brow on her sleeve. She did not want to move any further, but staying here would only prolong her discomfort. Chell proceeded forward but soon the heat of the metal was too much for her unprotected hands and she jumped back, leaving her full weight concentrated at her knees. The vent shook and groaned before giving in and collapsing. Chell landed on a ledge overlooking the incinerator, as expected from the intense heat. She was in front of two large tanks of gasoline that fed into the ever burning fire. Beside the gasoline tanks she found a door lead to stairs down to a hall near the opening of the incinerator.

Chell came upon a large unstationary scaffold headed towards the incinerator carrying a large bin full of rubble, frankencubes, and annoying twittering voices one of which sounded quite familiar.  
"The Fact Sphere is the most intelligent sphere, the Fact Sphere is the most handsome sphere, the Fact Sphere is not broken and should not be incinerated. Error, error, error, error, fact not found." The fact sphere was near the top of the bin, underneath a broken ceiling tile and a defective turret, its optic spinning around in its Chassis when Chell caught its eye. "You have defeated the central core, you are clearly superior and have earned the allegiance of the Fact Sphere." even though it was a corrupt core, Chell could use any help she could get and reached out to grab it only to quickly pull back her hand, being so close to the incinerator had already made it too hot to touch. She pulled her rag out of her pocket and wrapped it around her hand and attempted to grab the core once again, this time without losing her skin. With a quick jerk she pulled the core out of the bin, knocking a few pieces of rubble out as well.

Most of the stairs Chell found were broken, when she tried to climb up a few, but they would collapse immediately and she would fall farther down into the depths of Aperture, it was as if everything in the facility was trying to send her back into the depths of Aperture, and GLaDOS did not even know she was there. She was now walking along some abandoned rails while holding the Fact Sphere.

Chell held the Fact Sphere against her chest as she walked down the rails. Ordinarily she would hold them a few feet away, levitating in the tractor beam of the portal gun, but that clearly was not an option at this point. It was inconvenient, the tractor beam on the portal gun made everything she lifted feel lighter, and she was not prepared for its weight. The core twitched and wriggled underneath her arms while spouting out facts of varying accuracy.

"Most humans' right leg has a wider stride than the left; this causes them to run in circles when in an environment with no path or markers." It yammered. That sounded reasonable, "To counter this effect, Albert Einstein would tie a beaver to his pants to increase the stride of his left leg." That sounded about as realistic as the scrambled rocks for breakfast fact he gave earlier.

Chell contemplated dumping the sphere on the catwalk, seeing as its weight was beginning to tire Chell out, it probably was not fully functional being a corrupt core, and it would not stop listing off horrible 'facts', but there was no worse feeling then being alone in Aperture, except maybe your only company trying to kill you with neurotoxin, but even having GLaDOS as a potato talking to her was better than being alone. The voices of robots were the only noises to break the tomblike silence of Aperture's halls. Suddenly the fact sphere recognized there location and started becoming useful.

"Turn left at the repulsion gel tank." he said, "repulsion gel was originally created as a low calorie substitute for pudding. It has since been discovered to be a much better substitute for ice cream."

Chell looked down at the core, realizing that it had briefly broken away from its rambling to give her some guidance. After a moment Chell continued forward taking the core's advice.


	11. Chapter 11

Although he was corrupted, constantly spewing useless and inaccurate "facts", and for some reason referred to himself in the third person, the Fact Sphere had proven to be very useful; he guided her up three stories without running into so much as one of GLaDOS's cameras. Three stories closer to the surface, three stories closer to getting home, and without GLaDOS knowing! It all seemed too good to be true! And knowing Aperture Science it probably was, Chell looked around every corner carefully before proceeding forward, almost waiting for the thing that would tip GLaDOS off, whatever it might be. Knowing GLaDOS it seemed inevitable that she would eventually find them, Chell thought it felt somewhat strange to be going around aperture without her voice echoing throughout the facility, even when she was not on the testing tracks GLaDOS always had an idea of where Chell was.

Chell was lead to an abandon testing track, what few cameras where on the walls had been broken for ages, plants and dirt covered the dilapidated walls and for once the brown liquid covering the ground would not corrode your flesh, it was just muddy water, she could just walk across the floor of the room to the exit, even if the sludge came up to her shins. Despite the filthy environment Chell was relieved, GLaDOS still would not know of their presence, until she saw them. The two testing robots that she had only seen briefly before being released, she dove behind a broken panel sticking out of the wall, and smothered the Fact Sphere to muffle his constant blathering. After she was sure they did not notice her, she peeked through one of the many cracks to observe the testing robots, but they were not testing. The tall orange one, P-body, was holding a small cup full of wriggling things, the short round blue one, Atlas, was kneeling on the ground sifting through patches of dirt. When she last saw them they were new, their shells were a polished white, nice and clean, but know they had been thoroughly covered in dirt and mud, especially around the hands and knees.

"Had they been digging for bugs? What could they possibly want bugs for" Chell wondered quietly to herself.

GLaDOS held a squirming beetle in her claw and crushed it like an intelligence dampening sphere. She released the carcass into the mouth of an eagerly chirping bird, one of three, none of them having grown into their adult feathers. She reached into a small pile of insects to feed the other two birds. She ordinarily paid no attention to the abandoned test chambers, too dilapidated for use, beyond repair, occasionally contemplating tearing them down and recycling the materials. However after running out of potato batteries she found them a useful resource for nourishing her little killers, and they ate a lot, she was surprised at how quickly they ate the overgrown potato battery, she was sure that one would last for at least six months. She switched her monitor to see the robots' view. From P-body's view she could see Atlas turning around and dumping a heaping handful of worms into the cup.

"Blue, Orange, that's enough." She called to them, "get back into the elevator."

Chell held absolutely still as the two robots wandered into the elevator and disappeared up the tube. She then relaxed and held out the Fact Sphere so it could properly speak to her.

"Rats cannot throw up," It stated randomly then continued to a much more relevant matter, "the Fact Sphere can direct an elevator if plugged into a port." It said moving its optic as if to point to the one next to the tube. Chell plugged him in and soon enough an elevator came down the tube. The elevator Chell stepped into did not go all the way to the surface, Fact Sphere had to send her off to meet up with her later and continue escaping.


	12. Chapter 12

With the help of the nanobots Wheatley got back onto a management rail and was roaming the facility. He needed to escape, but he had never been able to escape on his own, well- he has never been able to escape at all, but the closest he had ever come to escaping he had a human companion to help him out, and all of the humans died. If they did not die from the relaxation center shutting down, (and most did) they died helping him escape. Except one, that female test subject that took down GLaDOS, the one that ended up sending him into lunar orbit, although by now she was probably dead too. If not immediately killed by GLaDOS, then probably the apparently toxic gels that she was forced to test with. He had not known that the gels where toxic when he was testing her, if he had he would have come up with a better excuse for the test subject not to use the gel in his lair than the pipe was old and dirty and probably filled with germs.

Although now he is a little glad that he failed, seeing as he had no idea how to prevent the reactor core from having a complete meltdown, and the test subject did not deserve to die. Why did he think he had to kill the test subject had to die in order for him to move on to testing with the robots? It just seemed like such a good idea at the time, but when he thought about it there was no good reason.

Wheatley was brought out of his thoughts when he heard the loud noises of metal hitting metal. He looked around to find what was making the noise then realized it was coming from above, and getting closer. With a loud clang a detached core landed in front of him. Wheatley did not see other cores very often, most of them having broken or powered down. In fact, when he had the three corrupted cores attached to him it was the largest collection of robots he had seen in years. He looked upon the new arrival with great curiosity.

"Um, Hello?" Wheatley called out to it, "You aren't broken are you?" He asked. The sphere opened its eye to reveal a bright pale pink optic.

"The Fact Sphere is not broken. Its facts are wholly accurate and very interesting." He said looking up at Wheatley, who groaned upon realizing who had dropped in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" Wheatley asked clearly annoyed.

"The Fact Sphere is waiting for the elevator." He replied

"Wha- and why would an elevator be coming to this floor?" Wheatley asked questioning the Fact Sphere's thinking.

"The fact sphere has directed her elevator to stop at this level." He told Wheatley, "Designs for elevators have been found as early two hundred years B.C., this is because early man thought that continuous use of the elevator would allow them to develop flying powers."  
"Who?" Wheatley asked, now curious about the other arrival yet to come  
"The human that defeated the Central Core, a task no other human has been able to complete, so she is clearly Superman." The fact sphere stated. "She was clearly superior and has earned the allegiance of the Fact Sphere." Wheatley, for once, was silent. The test subject the party escort robot dragged in; the test subject whom he tried to escape with, whom he had sent flying down into the bowels of the facility, whom tested within the inch of her life, and set up multiple death traps for her to fall into, and in response she invaded his layer, re-directed bombs at him, and sent him and a corrupt core into the cold, freezing, vacuum of space. And now she was back. In the facility. Heading in his direction. Right at this very moment. He was terrified. Sure Wheatley had wanted to apologize to her, not that he ever thought he would get the chance, but he had seen what she was capable of doing; she brought down GLaDOS twice and then went after him. If he were to ever see her again he would be completely dependant on her mercy, and he could only hope she would not torture him like GLaDOS did.

Suddenly he heard the soft sound of footsteps echoing the halls and began to panic. He had to get out of sight; he could not allow her to find him. Thinking quickly he disengaged his management rail and fell behind some crates with a loud thunk.

Chell had heard this sound and turned towards it trying to find the source. After the elevator stopped she had been wandering around for a while trying to find the Fact Sphere. She walked down the catwalk to where she heard the sound and found the Fact Sphere sitting in front of a stack of old crates.

Wheatley peered through the crates to see a pair of long fall boots walking over, their owner then crouched down smiling at the Fact Sphere and picked him up in her arms. This is when Wheatley noticed she no longer had a portal gun. She did not seem to notice Wheatley and turned around. She carried the core off, his rambling facts growing quieter in the distance, and Wheatley growled.

Wheatley hated the fact sphere and now the fact sphere was escaping this retched place with the test subject instead of him. What use could she have with a corrupted core who could do nothing but spouted insane dribble. He hated him ever since he told him the so-called "fact" that " All creatures have a limited range of hearing and certain frequencies are outside there range of hearing, because of this, robots can't hear you if you speak in accent." which proved to be by no means effective when he interrupted the testing, and only succeeded in making him look like a fool, not that GLaDOS did not think he was not a moron already and the subject did not seem to care, she just made a b-line to the opening as soon as she saw him. When Wheatley gained control of the facility he was very glad to see that the Fact Sphere had already been placed into the corrupted core storage. When the storage filled up he would gladly throw him into the incinerator with other trash.


	13. Chapter 13

Wheatley was an Intelligence Dampening Core; because of this he often makes poor decisions. Sometimes the decisions he made resulted in him being in a worse situation than if he had chosen to do nothing at all. Wheatley was sure that this was one of those decisions. He disengaged his management rail to avoid being seen by the lady test subject, when he probably could have rode the rail away before she came up to them. In hindsight it should have been obvious, and now he is on the floor, behind a stack of crates, unable to move. He should have just stayed and apologized to her like he originally planned, even if she did try to exact revenge on him it could not be worse than the torture GLaDOS was planning. Wheatley was too far from the management rail to be able to reattach himself, so he would have to wait for the nanobots to come back.

The nanobots did not come by for a while; something must have needed cleaning up or repairing. Wheatley was left to his thoughts for a long time. Seeing her reminded him of the regret he felt after being sent to space. He then decided that as soon as he got back on to his management rail and find her and apologize to her. If she chose not to drop kick him into the bowels of the facility like he did so similarly to her, maybe then they could escape like originally planned. He sighed, even if it meant traveling with the annoying Fact Sphere, well at least he was not stuck with the space-obsessed one. Just as Wheatley completed his thought he finally heard the high pitched chirping of the nanobots approaching.


	14. Chapter 14

Chell carried the Fact Sphere in her arms, they were on the same story as GLaDOS's chamber, only a few more and she would be at the surface. She found a flight of stairs and climbed up them to find that a large section of it was missing, much like many of the other stairs in Aperture. She turned and headed back down the stairs, desperately wishing she had a portal gun. Chell turned into the first doorway she found and ended up in a very familiar hallway past some catwalks.

"If you turn right down the hallway you will find the Central Core Chamber. If seen, she will kill us both. Violently" The Fact Sphere piped up, probably the most accurate fact he spoke since Chell met him. Chell continued passed the passage to GLaDOS's room to the end of the hall. She put down the Fact Sphere for a moment and focused on moving the rubble at the end of the hall revealing a door. When she first came down this hall and killed GLaDOS for the first time the door had been locked but now it was falling off its hinges. She found herself overlooking an incinerator, but it was not burning like the one she found the Fact Sphere. Then Chell remembered, the emergency intelligence incinerator would be right next to GLaDOS's room. It was the incinerator Chell used to kill GLaDOS. Of course she would not keep the incinerator functional if it could be used against her, and yet there was still trash being shoved into it.

Much like when she was searching for the dual portal device Chell saw turrets, cubes, and broken panels tumbling into the dull glow and accumulating in the pit. Chell looked up when she heard the sound of a yelling voice bouncing around a broken chute directly above them. The source of such yelps fell through a hole in the chute and landed in front of them instead of the incinerator. It was a core; the core opened its eye and swiveled around until it caught sight of Chell and the Fact Sphere.

"Hey there, angel face." It was the Adventure Sphere, "Hey where 'ya going?" It asked as moved past it. He was supposed to be in space, she saw him orbiting the moon just a few weeks ago. Seeing him here gave Chell the feeling that Wheatley would appear next, and hearing something screaming "Space" over and over again as it fell down into the inactive incinerator did not help dissipate this feeling.

Wheatley looked around but he could not find Chell. The underground sections of Aperture Science went on for miles; it could take days to find where she was. She could escape without Wheatley ever seeing her again. Wheatley really hoped that he had not been wasting his time looking for her when she had already escaped.

"AAAH." Wheatley let out a short yelp when a door near him swung open, "He looked down to see what it was, "OH! Its you!" he said with much recognition. Chell had opened the door leaving the incinerator and ran right into Wheatley. She stood slightly startled upon seeing him for a moment then began to turn away, not particularly thrilled to see him. "Wait! You!" he pleaded as she began to walk away "Lady! I just want to talk to you!" and to his surprise she actually stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. Chell was not entirely sure herself why she was willing to give this core any of her time, but nonetheless she stood there waiting to hear him out.


	15. Chapter 15

**Authors notes: Okay, I've been having trouble with repeating chapters lately, but that should all be fixed now, so feel free to go back and read some chapters, and if something is wrong, just tell me.**

The two robots moved from the elevator and headed toward GLaDOS's chamber. They entered making a crunching sound as they stumbled in. GLaDOS swung around to find the source of the unexpected sound. Something was lying in the in a corner of her chamber. GLaDOS stretched one of her mechanical claws past Atlas and P-body and pulled the object out from the corner, shaking it from a pile of broken glass and metal. She pulled it close to her optic to examine it. It was some type of animal, clearly dead, with blood stained shards protruding from the cracked shell. It appeared to be a crab, but it was far too large and only had for legs. The pile of glass it was sitting in was directly beneath the elevator shaft to the surface, when she called the elevator down the remains of the upper half of the elevator came crashing down to the ground.

"Blue, Orange," She turned to the two robots now dangling insects over the baby birds, "I have another job for you." She said while summoning a new elevator and sweeping away the remains of the damaged one. "Take the elevator and examine the shaft very carefully." The two little robots obediently dropped the insects and scurried over into the elevator and crammed both their bodies into the elevator that then swiftly headed up into the shaft.

GLaDOS then turned on her monitor on to the robots' view and examined the tube as they slowly slid up the shaft. They passed by a few rooms with turrets, a few were singing, some surrounding a Franken Cube, a few tangled in the roots left behind from the giant potato (GLaDOS took a special note of this as a food source for her little killers.) So far there was not anything to unusual. After a few moments the elevator passed red-brown rivulets running down the inside of the tube. Blood, something GLaDOS was quite familiar with. She remembered having to constantly clean it off the panels after the turrets opened fire; the test subjects Atlas and P-body found for her were not as good at avoiding bullets as the mute lunatic she released. The elevator continued upward, the little streams of blood merged into a large smear across one side of the shaft. Whatever was bleeding in the elevator was probably long gone, the blood was almost dry, and judging by the fluids oozing out of the crab carcass it belonged to another animal. At the top of the elevator they found the door to the surface slightly ajar, and the outer tube had been cracked.

GLaDOS brought the lift back down much faster than the way up and stopped abruptly when she noticed something she did not see before and opened up the elevator for the robots to get out. It took a few minutes for them to struggle out of the cramped elevator and step out into room. The two round themselves in a room with nothing but defective turrets and a door leading to a hallway.

"look over on that wall," GLaDOS commanded. The two bots walked up to a blood stain on the wall, in the perfect shape of a palm print. A human was here. GLaDOS chuckled at the thought of a new test subject. The robots then followed a series of small stains on the floor to the uniform storage room to find the long fall boot storage had been broken into and a pair of running shoes kicked off onto the floor. Immediately GLaDOS knew who it was, to most people these boots would be nothing more than a strange design for some high heels. Only one person from the outside would know the value of long fall boots, the only person to get out of Aperture Science alive.

Chell cautiously looked up at the core fidgeting around looking for words to fill the silence now that she decided not to run. After she had a moment to think she decided that she would listen to what he had to say, she did not trust him, but at the moment he seemed unable to harm her. She continued to watch him squirm under her gaze when she noticed that he was in much better condition than when she saw him last. He actually looked newer than the other cores now. Other than the occasional glitch in his speech thanks to the birds, Wheatley was functioning in pristine condition.

GLaDOS gave him a full repair before she began torture. I did not make sense to Wheatley, but now that he was out of her grasp he was not complaining. It actually reminded him of a story about a prison who would not give the death penalty to an ill prisoner. So one man would order peanut butter sandwiches for his last meal when he was allergic to peanuts and they had to put off his sentence. Wheatley often looked around for ways to injure himself that looked like an accident or an act of nature in an attempt to mimic the prisoner's cleverness, but GLaDOS never let him out of her sight, that is until she had dropped in the room where all the robots scream at you so she could attend to her precious birds.

"Okay." He started, finally gathering the courage to speak. He decided the best way to go about this was to be honest and keep it simple. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was bossy…" his voice dropped "and monstrous…" he trailed off not wanting to remember the event.

Chell just stared at him silently, showing no signs of forgiveness or hate. Chell was not ready to forgive the core that had tried to kill her, but she was not the vengeful type, if she had been she probably would have eaten GLaDOS in her potato body upon seeing her instead of listening to her pleas. She continued to stare at him, her gaze seemed to cause him great discomfort.

"Look, I can understand if you don't trust me," He started talking just to break the silence, "seeing as I tried to kill you a few times…" he trailed off again

"Eight times, to be exact."


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: Wow this is probably the longest chapter yet, any way enjoy.**

"Eight times, to be exact." A cold monotone voice pierced the room, "That's impressive, and I didn't even include your 'death option' ruse when counting." Wheatley's eye constricted to a pinpoint at the sound of the voice and he started shaking.

"We are all going to die. Violently." stated the Fact Sphere, who had been surprisingly quiet up until this point. Chell had a clearly surprised look on her face and then darted for the door. The door immediately shut and beeped as the electronic lock was activated.

"Oh good, I didn't think you'd remember me," GLaDOS chuckled, "but judging by that reaction I can see I left an impression." The room rumbled slightly and a hole broke through the ceiling allowing a robotic claw into the room. "You know I am actually glad to see you, testing hasn't been as satisfying since you left. You definitely raised the bar when it comes to quality test subjects" The claw picked Chell up and she dropped the Fact Sphere, GLaDOS paid no attention the corrupt core but another claw came in and put a type grip on Wheatley despite his frantic pleas. "Let's get to work, shall we? Who knows, maybe all the testing will help you shed a few pounds."

GLaDOS dropped Chell into a small test chamber with a singular portal. Most of the floor was covered in acid and the orange portal was placed in front of a hardlight bridge with a weighted storage cube on it. Chell quickly portaled onto the bridge and brought the cube to the button then portaled a bridge to the exit. It was a simple test that she finished quickly and efficiently and she proceeded to the elevator that lowered her to the next chamber and farther from the surface.

GLaDOS watched the test and recorded the results, when she had other humans to test they were too scared to see if the light bridges were actually solid and it took thirty minutes just to start, some fell into the acid from stumbling over their own feet. She finally had a test subject that could last more than one chamber without being rebuilt until they finished. Having that taken care of she turned to something that desperately needed her attention.

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO-AAAAAUGH!" Wheatley screamed as GLaDOS sent a few hundred volts through his system. His optic flickered and went out. GLaDOS then gave him a full repair so she could repeat the process a few times until a signal alerted her that Chell had completed the next test.

"Very good," GLaDOS's voice filled the test chamber, "I never imagined someone of your size would be able to move so quickly." Ordinarily Chell showed no reaction to GLaDOS's comments but the camera caught sight of her face grimacing. This caught GLaDOS's interest, rarely had she ever been able to invoke any emotion from this test subject.

Chell was never phased by GLaDOS's taunts whether she was mocking her weight, calling her unloved, or saying she was a monster, and this has not changed. What bothered Chell the most about the last message that rang over the intercom was the agonizing screams of pain in the background. Despite this she continued the next test trying to ignore what she just heard.

"Hang on, I'll dispense another weighted storage cube, I don't want you to break the button by standing on it." Nothing. GLaDOS's comment received no reaction from Chell. GLaDOS then waited a moment before her next move.

"AAAAAAAAAAUGH." Wheatley's screams suddenly played over the intercom piercing through the silence. Chell was so startled she nearly dropped the portal gun. She quickly finished the test trying to hide the discomfort on her face. There it was. This gave GLaDOS an idea. As Chell stepped out of the elevator she headed to the test chamber door but the door did not open.

"For this next test you will be required to use a new test object to finish the chamber. To accommodate the changes in equipment the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-colliding Super button has been modified to respond to a lighter weight." GLaDOS said finally opening the door, "At least now it will be useful for _something_." She continued as many yelps and groans came from the vital apparatus vent by the door until finally Wheatley dropped in front of Chell.

"Hello, there!" The core said nervously looking up at her. Wheatley looked around nervously; he had never been inside a test before. The closest he came to being inside one was when he was guiding Chell through the old broken ones while looking fore a portal gun, but he when he was in charge of the facility he saw how many ways you could make them dangerous. He looked up at Chell, who seemed puzzled by his presence. Chell seemed slightly confused by the fact she was given Wheatley to use as a testing object.

"Wouldn't GLaDOS prefer to torture Wheatley?" Chell wondered to herself, and then remembered what she did with all weighted storage cubes in the past, dropping them on turrets, using them as a bullet-shield, deflecting high-energy pellets, blocking discouragement beams, and using them as a stepstool. Yes, this was definitely a punishment. While Chell was not too fond of Wheatley after his attempt on her life, she did not feel comfortable torturing him. Never before did she have a cube that would scream in pain every time she used it, and she did not like the idea.

Although reluctant to start the test, Chell picked up Wheatley in the beam of the portal gun and proceeded forward. She looked at Wheatley and noticed that surprisingly he was in better condition before; with all the screaming she heard she thought he would be in worse condition. The first part of the test was very simple, just a button a door and the swirling orange portal. Chell set Wheatley down on the button and shot the blue portal on the other side of the door when it opened. When she went over to pick up Wheatley she briefly rubbed her hand on his shell, slightly curious. It was smooth and polished almost brand new.

"I'm looking pretty good, huh?" Wheatley said in a nervous attempt to end the awkward silence, "Uh, yeah, _She_ did it, gave me a full repair…uh, after breaking me…so she could break me a-again…" He pause for a moment but received no response and Chell walked through the portal and down a small hall, "She gave me a full cleaning too, at least on the outside…I think there is still something in side- like a dust pocket or something," He said while twitching as if to shake something loose. He suddenly shuddered violently bathing the two of them in a cloud of lunar dust. Chell immediately dropped Wheatley and the portal gun and collapsed to the ground in a violent coughing attack. "Aah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I-ah What did I do?" Wheatley panicked as Chell remained curled up on the floor, still coughing. Chell's whole body broke out in spasms as she coughed, her lungs ached and she began to feel lightheaded, she was not taking in enough air and lost consciousness.

"You never do anything right." GLaDOS chimed in, having observed the event.

"W-what?" Wheatley asked.

"You were put in charge of the test subjects, and they all die. You try and kill her, and you get catapulted into space. You try to help her and you end up killing her." GLaDOS continued, "Good job." She finished with the audio of her slow clap processor.

"W-WHAT! She-she's not dead right? She can't be dead, not from just that." He said panicking. He tried pushing against the ground and slowly rolled towards her. He relaxed some when he realized she was still breathing, maybe wheezing slightly.

After a few minutes Chell opened her eyes to a large, cracked blue optic staring at her face. She slowly backed away and propped herself against the wall, breathing heavily.

"Oh, you're okay! That's brilliant." He said cheerfully, "I thought I had hurt you, I didn't do anything wrong did I?" His voice became nervous again.

Although Chell was pretty sure he was carrying moon dust and he probably just set her recovery process back two months, she just shook her head in reply. It would do little good to press the issue; she chose to move on as if it were nothing. After catching her breath she picked up the portal gun and Wheatley along with it and entered the next part of the test.

"I-I have got to say, I really am sorry," Wheatley started talking again, "not just about the death tr-OH GOD! LOOK OUT!" he suddenly screamed. Chell turned to see what he was screaming at, then dropped to the ground, flattening herself as a high-energy pellet zipped overhead.

"Haven't seen one of those in a while." Chell thought to herself as she looked up off the floor. The first time she tested with the high-energy pellet GLaDOS stated that it was lethal to make contact with, so she should try to avoid it, but currently Chell was laying down in a narrow hallway with very little room to dodge it. Ordinarily Chell would portal the pellet farther away or deflect it with a cube, but she did not have a dual portal device, she had a singular portal device and the secondary portal had not been activated, and she did not have a cube to deflect it, she had Wheatley. She looked over to Wheatley then to the pellet flying overhead again, and rolled over. She grabbed the portal gun once again and dragged Wheatley as she army-crawled her way to the end of the hall and ducked out of the way of the pellet.

"You're doing tremendously well. Brilliant, just brilliant" Wheatley praised, upon realizing she was supposed to use him as a shield from the pellet. "I like the way you think, very, uh…innovative, inspiring and um, allegorical." Ignoring the misuse of the last word (he probably did not know the actual definition), Chell noticed this as an attempt at flattery and was beginning to think that Wheatley was desperate to get on her good side, and he was. He realized the monstrous nature of his actions and that he was now completely dependent on her mercy, when she was in a place now torture him in many, many ways, fortunately for Wheatley, Chell was not as vengeful as GLaDOS, she just continued to listen to him ramble while she tested.

After they left the hall with the high energy pellet the rest of the chamber walls had portal surfaces. Chell walked over to an edgeless safety cube receptacle and dropped Wheatley in, activating a hardlight bridge across a moat of acid. After crossing the hard light bridge, around a corner she saw one white tile for a portal and quickly shot at it. The swirling blue form appeared on the tile but remained cloudy and unclear. The orange portal still had not been activated. She looked around for the grill that formed the orange portal, glancing over to the hall they just exited found it with a black scorch mark where the pellet hit it. Opposite where she placed the blue portal was the receptacle; She continued to look around until she found a button on Wheatley's side of the moat. She moved Wheatley from the edgeless safety cube receptacle and to the button, activating the orange portal, directing the pellet to the receptacle and activating stairs leading to a ledge over the moat.

At the top of the stairs there was a row of ten turrets lined up next to one portable surface, Chell to their side, separated from them by a glass pane but she would need to step in front of them to complete the test. The orange portal appeared on the wall next to Chell, and a hardlight bridge covered in the orange propulsion gel went diagonally down into it. Chell popped a portal onto the only portable surface she could see, next to the turrets. She looked down at Wheatley who had stopped rambling to examine the next part of the test. It was not much of a test at all really, more like GLaDOS asking Chell to use Wheatley as a bowling ball, sliding him into a barrage of bullets. Instead Chell set Wheatley down carefully next to the portal; she was not going to be GLaDOS's puppet for torturing the core, even if it was Wheatley. She stepped over the hard light bridge into the portal, she was standing right next to the turret who could not see her in its limited range. She picked up the turret and rammed it into the next one creating a domino effect. All the turrets toppled over each other and started firing explosively. Chell quickly jumped back through the portal, but not without getting nicked in the leg and limped over to Wheatley.

"Brilliant! You knocked down all those bloody turrets in one move!" Wheatley said, "Did I ever tell you about the time I got locked in a room full of turrets, apparently they don't just shoot at whatever's human, if you move around too much they'll- what happened to your leg!" Wheatley said noticing the red patch forming on one of Chell's long fall boots. She was hurt, again, but she just picked Wheatley up and kept on walking, well now limping slightly, but she still moved forward. Wheatley often wondered what made her so different, any other person would have died by now, but Chell never stopped. Even when injured she would not stop. He would never have been able to do the things she did, even if he did have the limbs to do it. Even right now he was nothing more than dead weight.

"I really wish I could be of more use to you, I honestly do," He said, "but there's not much I can do here, … um, unless maybe you have a door that needs hacking." Chell smiled at the offer, but she was perfectly capable of breaking doors on her own. It was true that Wheatley had not been of much help in this test, other than as a weight, but he could have been much more useful if Chell had used him like GLaDOS wanted her to, however she was not going to torture a core to please GLaDOS, even one that smashed her into a pit in a fit of sudden rage. Throughout the test she managed to keep Wheatley safe at the cost of gaining a few cuts herself, but this was nothing new when testing, injury was to be expected. When a discouragement beam came near Wheatley, Chell spun around and saving him from getting scorch while managing to burn her own shoulder, Chell began to wonder whether she was really her sole motivation for this behavior really was her just trying to spite GLaDOS.

"Congratulations on completing the test, you certainly took care of the test object." GLaDOS said, but her tone was clearly displeased. Chell came across several opportunities to torture Wheatley in the test but she ignored them and sometimes deliberately found way around them. "Unfortunately, the test object cannot continue with you throughout the test and must be euthanized. Please dispose of it in the Aperture Science emergency intelligence incinerator"


	17. Chapter 17

"So we're taking the path of the companion cube." Chell thought as she noticed the incinerator chute in front of the chamber lock. This brought her mind how the cube was probably still sitting in the wheat field abandoned on top of a crushed headcrab. Wheatley noticed Chell staring off into the incinerator.

"L-lady," he called to her timidly, snapping her out of her distant thought, "Y-you're not actually thinking of throwing me in there, are you?" he was shaking. Chell looked down at him and shook her head. She certainly was not going to play into GLaDOS's hands like this, but she would not be able to continue forward unless he was incinerated. Chell sat down cross-legged and set Wheatley on her lap while she tried to think of a way out.

He looked up at her; she was resting her chin on his hull clearly deep in thought. He remained quiet to let her think it was all he could do for her at the moment. After all he did to her, she could easily throw him into the incinerator and be done with him, never having to see his face again, but she just sat there.

"Oh, come on. You didn't wait this long when you threw pieces of me in the incinerator." GLaDOS said when she noticed Chell was not moving. Wheatley felt Chell shudder at the comment. When Chell had first thrown the cores in the incinerator she thought of them nothing more than metal balls with some wiring, at first she was startled when one of them spoke to her and started asking her questions; it seemed innocent enough, but while they were not trying to murder her like GLaDOS they were connected to something vital in GLaDOS and burning them was the only way to shut her down. Since then she has seen that all cores have unique personalities, they could feel pain, pleasure, happiness, and fear. Almost like they were just a person put into a core (in GLaDOS's case that was exactly what happened) and Chell did not feel as comfortable throwing them into a fire if they were not trying to hurt her.

"If you need some motivation I can play the tapes of when he tried to murder you." GLaDOS chimed in again. Wheatley shook his optic in protest of this suggestion. "Here, I'll start with the audio from the Central Core chamber."

"And don't think I'm not on to you too lady. You know what you are? Selfish…" The recording played Wheatley's voice over the intercom.

"I'm sorry," Wheatley said, looking up at Chell from her lap, almost pathetic like a shivering puppy.

"What? Are you still alive? YOU ARE JOKING! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Chell looked back up at the cameras as the it continued.

"I'm so sorry," Wheatley was now whimpering as he saw anger forming on Chell's face. Chell tried her best to ignore the audio playing in the test chambers. She was determined not to let GLaDOS manipulate her. "Y-you don't know what it's like in there!" Chell put her hands over her ears to try to block out the painful memories overlapping desperate pleas, but she could still hear them. After a few minutes of Chell still not moving the audio cut out.

"I am genuinely surprised that you value his life so much." GLaDOS said, "Do you like him because you finally found something more spherical than you?" still no response. "Well, I'm quite certain that you do not value his life more than your own." Chell looked up at this slightly alarmed.A green fog began to fill the room. Neurotoxin. Chell had become quite familiar with GLaDOS's neurotoxin; on three different occasions had she been exposed to it.

"Now that's just not fair!" Wheatley complained when he saw the vents open up. Chell still did not open the incinerator, once she set her mind to something Chell never gave up, and she definitely was not going to give into GLaDOS.

"If you just sit there you are going to die." GLaDOS stated, "You can save yourself by just walking out the door." She chuckled as Chell was already trying to force it open. "It won't open until you throw something into the incinerator."

"'Something'? Will anything do?" was the first thought Chell had and immediately turned around and ran back through the test, leaving Wheatley on the floor. The test was really long and it took a while for Chell to come back with a deactivated turret in her tractor beam. She was feeling dizzy and had a headache but she still was not stopping, she dropped the turret into the incinerator grabbed Wheatley and sprinted towards the open chamber lock before GLaDOS could change it, and promptly passed out as the door shut behind her. Chell had actually lasted a lot longer than GLaDOS had expected, especially considering how much she had been running around while inhaling the poison. GLaDOS's greatest surprise was when Chell collapsed in front of the elevator with the core she was still breathing. A few hours went by and she still was not dead, Chell began to stir as she regained consciousness, with a pounding headache and sore muscles.

"Oh! You're alive!" Wheatley said when she moved, "I thought you were a goner for sure. I can't believe you actually risked your life when-" His voice was cut off when GLaDOS started speaking.

"Well congratulations, it appears you win the Nobel Prize for developing immunity to neurotoxin." She said her voice completely flat. The elevator came down in the chamber, but Chell was in too much pain to stand up. She curled up around Wheatley and just held still, waiting for her head to stop spinning. "You wouldn't be in this condition if you had just completed the test properly."

Eventually Chell gathered up her strength and dragged Wheatley into the elevator, while breathing heavily and silently cursing herself for becoming so soft; she just risked her life for the metal ball that nearly ended her life during their last encounter, but she continued keeping a firm grip on him. The elevator slid down into the next test, Chell stumbled through the chamber lock still holding Wheatley and looked around. There was a button, and some propulsion gel and a cube across an acid pit and the exit across another in the opposite direction the orange portal was next to the propulsion gel. She walked up to a button on the ground and dropped Wheatley on to it. Nothing. Wheatley was not supposed be in this test so the equipment was not modified to respond to his weight. Chell stood on the button to see that it raised a panel forming a ramp towards the exit, but Chell saw something more important and she popped a portal on a surface exposed when the ramp went up, grabbed Wheatley and ran through the orange portal.

"Whats going on? Are we escaping?" He asked as they found themselves in an abandoned maintenance area. GLaDOS did not call to them, she knew that section's doors were locked; that section was a dead end, but it was not the door that caught Chell's attention when she placed the portal there, she reacted to what she saw on the walls. Graffiti covered the walls with paintings of GLaDOS, lasers, turrets and a companion cube. The floor was littered with empty cans and jugs and off in the corner there was a seat cushion laid on top of a few layers of cardboard.

"Oh look, there is a pass-code door." Wheatley said cheerfully, "there should be a port around here; if you plug me in I can crack it open." Chell brought Wheatley towards the door and a port opened up to the approaching aperture device and she plugged him in. When his first attempts did not work he tried guessing the password, "Okay, oh ...well," he chuckled nervously, "Um, this is a bit different than the other doors, different access code and whatnot," he quickly mumbled then raised his voice, "I think she may have reset the access codes, so, um, I just have to hack it open." He cleared his vocal processor and began, " Okay, A,A,A,A,A…B, no, A,A,A,A,A,C,." Chell chuckled silently to herself; Wheatley's antics had not changed at all. "This may take a while, you should probably just take a rest actually." Chell was happy to take this request, she still ached and was beginning to feel nauseous from the neurotoxin's side effects. She lay down on the pitiful cardboard mattress and rested her head on the cushion and listened as Wheatley rattled off every possible combination.


	18. Chapter 18

GLaDOS watched the chamber silently; she could not tell what was going on in her test subject's head. Chell was sitting in the dead-end maintenance area, the portal had not moved and she could see her long fall boots through the portal in the chamber. She should have realized by now that the maintenance area was a dead end and come back to the testing chamber. _Was she sleeping?_ After another thirty minutes GLaDOS decided her test subject had enough rest already and played the audio of the train horn. Chell bolted upright at the sound; she was feeling drowsy having just woken up from her nap.

"G, L, A, D, A, A." Wheatley was still trying to find the password. "Oh, I got an Idea! G, L, A, D, O, S, …Oh, no - no th-that's not it. Hmm. I thought for sure that would work. Oh, P,O,R,T,A,L, no- no that's not it either."

"If you really want to sleep that much I could put you in the relaxation center for a few months." GLaDOS called out, her attention made Wheatley frantic and he began rapidly listing off a whole bunch of completely random combinations, "just come back to the testing area, it isn't even that difficult of a test."

"P,Q,X,A,B,C, uh- no W,E,U,J,K,O," Wheatley continued frantically, " um, O,H,C,I,E,L," he heard a light ding from the door and the lock disengaged, "Wait that's it? Oh! I did it! Look, I did it." Chell looked over actually quite surprised that he was able to guess the pass-code.

"Wait right there!" GLaDOS commanded noticing that the lock had disengaged. She had never expected the little idiot who could never accomplish anything on his own would be able to hack the door. "Where are you going?!" Chell had disappeared from the portal's view. Chell ran down out of the door with Wheatley, following more graffiti painted down the hall. When they came upon a set of broken stairs Chell set down Wheatley and aimed the portal gun at the top of the staircase and the swirling blue cloud appeared, which is when Chell remembered she only had control over one portal.

GLaDOS never gave Chell a dual portal device and without both portals the only use the portal gun had was its tractor beam. Although it greatly reduced the number of test chamber possibilities and possible data points to record GLaDOS had no intention of giving Chell a dual portal device. The singular portal device was of little use outside a test chamber and GLaDOS did not want to give Chell any type of advantage if she managed to escape again.

Chell was standing at the bottom of the damaged staircase looking up with no way to move forward. They had not traveled far from the testing area before getting stuck so it would not be long until GLaDOS would catch them if they did not move.

"Um, yeah… I haven't got any ideas yet," Wheatley mumbled, "but if I think of something I'll let you know." He continued cheerfully, Chell was beginning to wish she still had Fact Sphere, Wheatley was fine company, but she needed more help if she was going to escape. "Okay, lets see… what do we have to work with…" he said looking around, but there was nothing around beside the broken stairs. Chell tossed Wheatley overhead onto to the stairs landing with a yelp. She jumped up and grabbed the detached handrail and hoisted herself up. When Chell heard a loud crushing noised coming from Rattmann's den she ran up the stairwell to find a locked door.

Chell looked all around frantically, it did not take GLaDOS long to find them. One of her claws was already snaking up the stairs and the door was locked. Directly above them she saw a vital apparatus pipe. Quickly she jumped onto the railing, she tucked the portal gun, and by extension Wheatley under her chin.

"W-What are you doing?" He asked as she gripped both hands on the frame around the tube and starting kicking. With a few repetitions the glass shattered and Chell threw Wheatley into the tube, "YAAAAAAAH." He screamed as he flew off and Chell followed shortly after.

Air rushed past as they were sucked through the tube. While Chell was fighting back flashbacks of Wheatley spinning in the tubes with joy after releasing the neurotoxin she reached forward to grab onto his handle to prevent him from flying off with testing equipment like last time then reached for the portal gun that nearly flew past them. From inside the tube they could see miles of networked apparatus vents tangled within the framework of Aperture. The tube curved over a girder then plummeted down, tossing them about like an amusement park ride. The tube pulled them out of the network down into a dark shaft, Wheatley's optic being the only source of light.

"Sure, brings back memories, huh?" he said raising his lower shutter cheerfully as they twirled through the pipe. Chell forced her mouth into a straight line, trying not to smile. Although she would not allow GLaDOS to hurt him, she was not ready to call him a friend again. He was made uncomfortable by her stern expression and was forced to look away.

Authors Notes: Yay! New chapter! This is probably the longest story I've ever written now! I'm not a very experienced writer… anyway must keep writing.


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